Monday, August 07, 2006

Cohabitation - Part IV

Note: There was a delay in posting this blog because I had to get permission.

I try not to blog about "real" things in my life. I dislike when people tell me that they feel they've caught up on my life by reading my blogs... I blog to be entertaining, silly, and have fun. If you really want to know what's going on with me, shoot me an e-mail.

That said, there is definitely a fourth part to cohabitating...I just couldn't write about it without permission. I now have permission - sort of. So here is a list of things that I do NOT understand about men in general. Things that I've heard other women mention, and I've found to be true. This should in no way make you think that the man I live with participates in these actions - this is just a general blog aimed at no one in particular.*

1) Dirty Clothes = Hamper. How hard is that? Seriously, if they don't go in the hamper, where DO they go? I mean, they can't go on the floor (as discussed previously), they can't go in the closet (may send females into a violent rage) and they can't go back in the drawers to be worn again (eventually someone will catch on to this strategy.) This issue has actually come a long way since the cohabitation began. The dirty clothes used to be nowhere near the hamper. Then (with a little help from Laney) they began to appear close to the hamper - maybe on top of the hamper. Now, every so often, there will be one sock in the hamper and one on the floor, or the hamper will be empty on Sunday, and then overflowing on Monday morning. It's mind-boggling really. Which brings me to...

2) ...the number of outfits that men will wear in any given day. When I lived alone, I did one load of laundry maybe once every other week. Now? I find I have to do laundry two or three times per week! When I'm folding these loads, I'll find one shirt that's mine - maybe one outfit that I wore to workout the day before. EVERYTHING else belongs to the boy. Seriously. It's unbelievable! Since I only see him for any amount of time in the evenings, and he doesn't change then, I am forced to assume that he comes home from work roughly every three hours to change clothing for fun. I KNOW he doesn't workout daily...so I have no idea what's going on. I'll ask him, and he just laughs. I don't think I WANT to know.

3) The remote control. Now, I've heard this is an issue for many couples, but I didn't understand. I thought you just decided (together) what to watch that evening, and then gave him the remote to avoid arguments. He can hold it, control volume...you know - that sort of thing. I have now found that this issue is far more complex. We will be watching a show that we're both interested in (ie Shark Week last week on the Discovery Channel - woot for Shark Week!!!) and the moment a commercial comes on, the channel is being changed. WTF? I mean, I KNOW he's interested in what we're watching, and wants to see the rest of it...does he have ADD? It's like he wants to see as many other channels in two and a half minutes as humanly possible. I don't think he even stays on any one channel long enough to see what's on. I'll see a flash of Paris Hilton's face, the Geiko gecko, a flash of the score for the Cubs game (we might actually pause here long enough for me to start complaining about missing Sharks), a dog, the Pasta Express, a tree, and then we'll we'll flash back to the channel we were originally on. It's the weirdest male ritual ever. I have found no rhyme, reason or cure for this phenomenon.

4) The refrigerator. (I actually had a discussion with him to better understand this over the weekend. All I did was laugh. I don't understand anything at all.) Here's the best way to explain.

I had a friend spend Sunday evening with me last week. We ordered deep dish pizza, and between the three of us, there was only one piece left at the end of the evening. I was cleaning up the kitchen, and I was going to pitch it, but decided at the last minute that one piece would be enough for lunch on Monday. I wrapped it in aluminum foil, and put it in a drawer in the refrigerator - where I promptly forgot it on Monday morning.

On Tuesday, I looked for my lunch in vain. Finally, I woke the boyfriend up and asked him if he had eaten the piece of pizza yesterday. He sheepishly said yes. No big deal - it was only pizza.

But then I started wondering. How did he know the pizza was in there? How did he know where to look? We do the grocery shopping together, so he has to know what's in the fridge. If he had no reason to suspect that there was pizza, how did he find it? I asked him, and here's the explanation I received.

"You know, it's funny. I'll look in the refrigerator, then the pantry, then the cupboards for food, and then I'll repeat the process if I don't see anything I like. I know every single thing that we have in that apartment to eat, but if I don't feel like fixing any of them, I'll keep looking for something else. Even if we haven't gone to the store lately. It's almost like I expect the Food Fairy to visit and drop me something to eat. Sometimes, I'll just get lucky. When I saw the pizza I didn't know what it was, but I knew immediately that it was something I hadn't seen before, so it was fresh, and from the shape, I assumed it was a leftover that you had rescued. I opened it, and it was my lucky day. You hadn't said you wanted it, so I ate it."

Does anyone else find this weird? I mean maybe it's just me.... I mean, you've got to admire his optimism, right? But I can almost picture him looking hopefully into the refrigerator three times in 10 minutes at the exact same items....hoping against hope he'll find something different.

There's more, but I'll get to those later. When I have permission :-)

*If you believe that, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you - cheap!!